Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has apologized for the fact that an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed after entering Russian airspace in Grozny, Chechnya on Wednesday, but did not say that Russia was responsible.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, on Saturday, admitted that his country’s air defence was working when an Azerbaijani Airlines plane tried to land in Grozny before crashing, breaking the Kremlin’s silence as speculation mount that Russia may have accidentally shot the plane.

Vladimir Putin has apologised for the Azerbaijan Airlines crash but stopped short of accepting responsibility for what he described as a “tragic incident.”